[P] how do i love you? oh, this way and that way;

[Marisol]

I did think, let’s go about this slowly.
This is important. This should take
some really deep thought. We should take
small thoughtful steps.

But, bless us, we didn’t.

Every inch of her is waiting, 

and waiting,

and waiting, poised like a cat about to pounce or like a deer about to run, body tightrope, heart beating too fast and too shallow against the parts of Marisol that are nothing but frail, porcelain bone.

She has never thought of herself as frail before. But times change.

So there she stands: waiting, and trying not to shake. Her eyes are fixed on his, deep gray that has become altogether too serious. Her mouth is dry, face aflame with unconquerable heat; it is a blessing, then, that her skin does not show such a blush so easily. This kind of weakness is unbecoming for a queen. Even more so for a warrior. And the knowledge of it rattles around in her chest like a lead weight, pulling her down, down, down—

This is unbecoming.

This want, with its teeth and its claws and its bright, pale eyes—

It is unbecoming.

Yet—

She does not quite care. Or cannot. Of course some part of her struggles against the net of it; of course there is a bit of her, wearing Anselm’s coat, maybe even his voice, that says run while you can; and of course this is all silenced by the way he looks at her with eyes like the farthest patch of the ocean ocean, his face oh-so-sweet with that pretty, tragic smile. Nothing more than a boy who wants and wants and wants. Like her. With the same depth, the same ferocity. 

Mari inhales; the breath burns in her chest. A reminder that, for better or for worse, they both still belong to the land of the living.

His mouth is working without sound. She watches him intently, on edge for the moment in which he will finally speak, rattled by the infinite possibilities of what that speech might be: so many of the options are terrible, dismal, heartbreaking—but still she is hoping, with the stupid eagerness of a child whose wide eyes are only a lighthouse for bringing heartbreak ashore.

Marisol does not know what he is thinking. She does not know what he will do, if anything. She does not know what she has done wrong, or right, or if she has done anything of note at all. She only knows that:

His hair is a veil, soft against her cheek. That he does not flinch at the touch of her lips, or at the ghost of a breath that whooshes over the slope of his neck, then his shoulder. That he is not moving away from her, that he radiates warmth, that she can maybe (can’t she?) feel his heartbeat like it is her own, just as strong, a little slower.

Only that when he speaks it is reverent, delicious.

Only that when he speaks she cannot believe it—how gentle, and how sweet—hoe close it is to what she was hoping-hoping-hoping for with the strength of a fever or a blooming storm.

Only that her breath shudders on the inhale, that she is dazed by the sound of the word stay, the rich darkness of his voice saying nothing in me is uncertain, and in a gesture very (very) unbecoming for a queen she does not draw back to look him in the eyes but buries her head again in his shoulder to hide the part of her that is about to cry in relief.

“Oh,” she mumbles into his skin—half laughing, half pained. A dark wing sweeps out and up, comes to rest its weight over his back; finally, then, she does step back, smiles at him shyly, blinks up through lashes dark and maybe a little damp. “Good,” Marisol says, soft. “I was hoping you would say so. But I would have waited, too.”

It is so close to a confession.

“Speaking.”

credits